“Every once in a while an innocent man is sent to the legislature.”
– Frank McKinney Hubbard, Saying

The good news on the legislative front comes from various state legislatures. They remind us that with the pervasive frenzy in many states to pass laws ensuring that the kind of non-existent voter fraud that was the hallmark of the recent presidential election is properly addressed, at least some state lawmakers have found time to enact. legislation that has nothing. to do with electoral fraud, proving that some lawmakers can chew gum and walk at the same time.

In the same week that the 232nd mass shooting of 2021 took place … Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, signed a law that will allow anyone over the age of 21 to carry a handgun without a license .Last week we looked at South Carolina. The state legislature used the 2021 session to broaden the execution options available to death row inmates. Until the legislature intervened, death row inmates in South Carolina had only two choices as to how they would like the sentence to be carried out: lethal injection or the electric chair. Throwing a bone, so to speak, at the next to be executed, the legislature added a third method that the convict can choose to enter the prescribed state: the firing squad. It was only a coincidence that a few weeks after the South Carolina legislature acted, the United States Supreme Court was given the opportunity to consider a Missouri man’s request to be executed by a firing squad instead of a lethal injection. His appeals, about how he would like to be sent, had been going on for years. In its latest appeal, asking that he be executed by firing squad instead of lethal injection, the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that his request was filed too late and refused to honor him. . The US Supreme Court declined to get involved in the discussion. South Carolina was of course not the only state to find the time to address issues other than the electoral process. Texas and Alabama also participated in the act.

In Texas, in the same week that the 232nd mass shooting of 2021 took place in California, in a shooting in which eight people were killed, Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, signed a law that will allow anyone over the age of 21 to carry a handgun without a license. Cheating the passage of this bill and ignoring the manna of mass shootings in 2021, Abbott described the legislation as “the strongest Second Amendment legislation in Texas history.” On a related note, US Senator Ted Cruz (who last drew attention to a beach in Mexico to escape the Covid quarantine and cold weather Texas suffered in winter) said : “I applaud Texas lawmakers for passing this landmark law. make the constitution a reality and protect the rights of law-abiding citizens. “

In Alabama, the legislature has dealt with a somewhat less thorny issue. He faced the thorny problem of teaching yoga in public schools. Until the Legislature took action in its recently ended session, it had taken a dark view of yoga and approached it in a straightforward way. He said local school boards can decide whether or not to offer yoga and it is an optional subject. It further provided, however, that the instruction was limited to “poses, exercises and stretching techniques” and provided that all “poses, exercises and stretching techniques would be exclusively descriptive names in English”.

Notwithstanding statutory provisions that appeared to allow limited teaching of yoga in Alabama, the State Board of Education completely banned yoga in public schools in 1993. The to prohibit was found in the administrative code of the Alabama State Board of Education. The code specifically prohibited any technique involving “induction of hypnotic states, guided imagery, meditation, or yoga.” The ban was reinforced in the Alabama Physical Education Teacher’s Guide. This guide is not limited to discussing yoga. It also discusses some other activities to avoid in public schools. Among the activities to be avoided are those which “show too much empathy for fun without a goal or objective” and “limit the maximum participation of a majority of students”. In order to educate managers as to what activities might be considered to emphasize fun without a goal or purpose, the guide lists “specific games or activities for students to avoid”. Games to avoid include: “Crack the whip, dodge ball, Doggy, doggy, where are you bone? Duck, duck, goose … Heads up, seven up … Messy backyard … Red light, green light , Red Rover, relay races, says Simon… Steal the bacon. ”It is not known whether ending the yoga ban will also end the ban on the games listed above.

While the legislation appears to point Alabama in the direction the rest of the country has taken with respect to yoga, it provides that “all poses, exercises, and stretching techniques will be named after descriptive names in English only. . She says: “chanting, mantras, mudras, the use of mandalas … and namaste greetings are expressly prohibited. “This requires a signed parental consent which includes an acknowledgment by the parent that yoga” is part of the Hindu religion “and describes a variety of yoga activities that are prohibited.

While the Legislature was able to expand the capacity of those who wanted to participate in yoga classes, it found a way to limit the capacity of those who wanted to participate in the electoral process. He banned voting on the sidelines.